Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Scott.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Mayrand, I wonder if you could explain the annotation in the estimates saying that you wouldn't be going ahead with an e-voting project. Is that purely for privacy reasons, or is it also budgetary?

[Marc Mayrand]

I would say it's both.

Financially, we realized as we looked at it more closely that it would be expensive. In the current fiscal context we thought it would not be advisable for us to invest massively in this initiative.

As I mentioned briefly, we also have concerns about online registration, about proper identification methods and the lack of an existing universal one at the federal level. I think everybody thinks that online voting means you can vote from any computer, at home, at work, or anywhere around the world. I think that would require much public discussion as to whether we are, as a society, comfortable with having unsupervised voting on a large scale. Some would argue you already have it through mail voting, but again, that's a very small piece. As a society, are we at the point at which we would accept unsupervised voting for the vast majority of electors? I think this is a discussion we need to have. It's beyond my jurisdiction, I would suggest.

In terms of security, these matters can be dealt with in due course.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

We'll do one more round. We've captured everyone in our first round, but due to time constraints, I don't think we'll get fully through a second. We'll do a seven-minute round, one for each, and call it a day at that point.

Mr. Armstrong, you're up first. You can share your time or use it.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I'll share my time with Mr. Lukiwski.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I thought you might.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

The compliance report, the usefulness of the ACPP—this is the Advisory Committee of Political Parties. Do you find this is a useful group? Do they provide adequate information to you?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, it is a useful group. Can it be made more useful? Probably, and we're looking at ways of achieving that.

It's absolutely key for Elections Canada to have a direct connection with political parties, to understand their concerns and to share with them our initiatives, because we want to make sure we're responsive to their needs within the constraints of the legislation. But we're responsive to political parties' expectations. We want to facilitate their work, facilitate compliance. The ACPP serves a useful purpose in that regard.

On the voting model, I think parties have a key interest in that. We're going to use the ACPP to validate some of our approaches with regard to redesigning the voting model. They were quite involved with online registration at the time, and they will continue to be. When we explored the alternative voting devices for disabled electors, they were involved in that process too. We'll continue to involve them.

We also involve them in regulatory initiatives. We have a full agenda with them.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Great. Thank you.

I'm going to turn the rest of my time over to my colleague.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you very much.

Throughout the entire time here we haven't really talked much about your budget and the main estimates, so I have a couple of quick questions here. I know we don't have much time.

I believe in the last appearance, sometime last year, you mentioned you were going to a zero-based budgeting model. Could you give us an update on that process and what your findings have been, the effectiveness of that model?

[Marc Mayrand]

We completed it late last fall, and the net result of it, as I mentioned in my presentation, was that we would have to eliminate 32 indeterminate positions at Elections Canada. I would suggest that half of them are as a result of fiscal restraint; the other half are as a result of the need to reinvest in areas of higher priorities. We have reinvested a bit of money in the commissioner's office to support investigative work. We've reinvested in political financing because they were finding financial pressures. We also reinvested in the whole new area of compliance at the polls, which needs to be resourced if we want progress on these things.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Did I hear you correctly? I'm sorry, I don't want you to repeat yourself. Did you say this exercise is going to result in a reduction of 32 full-time staff positions?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

What is the staff complement currently?

[Marc Mayrand]

It's 372.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Has that increased, decreased, stayed about level over the past, say, two or three elections, or have you seen a need to have more people in your staff complement?

[Marc Mayrand]

There is a need to have more people. Before we did this zero-based budgeting exercise, we also did an A-base review two and a half years before the fiscal restraint settled in. At that time we found we were missing about 25 indeterminate positions. But, again, things change. We had to deal with the fiscal restraint and we have moved on that.

At some point in time I will have to go back to Treasury Board. We will have 30 new ridings in 2015. We need staff to support those ridings.

There are a number of things out there that are new, and they will, I believe, justify additional resources.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Let me see if I have this clear. My understanding is that the budget that affects general elections is not affected because statutory requirements take care of that. If there are going to be 30 new ridings, the majority of the cost would be come election time, would it not? Are you suggesting that just because there are 30 new ridings your office will require new staff?

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, I am.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

How does that work? I'm not quite connecting the dots here.

[Marc Mayrand]

We make a distinction among three phases: ongoing operations to sustain the organization—that's the core minimal staff we need to continue to operate and to make sure you have a list every year, that maps are up to date, and all these things; in addition to that, in the year before an election we get into what we call readiness, where we now bring ROs into the fold and start preparing them for the election; and then we have the conduct of the election.

What's readiness and what's conduct? That's statutory authority. Whatever is ongoing is indeterminate staff. This is the core group of workers who are needed to make sure that in 2015 we'll be able to run the election.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

All right.

We're just two and a third years out from the next federal election. I know it's difficult to estimate the cost of general elections and byelections that far out, but would you hazard a guess? It's going to be a larger election, obviously, with 30 new ridings.

Based on that and on what your staff complement may be, what do you think the percentage increase might be compared to the last election? Is there any way you might be able to hazard a guess there?

[Marc Mayrand]

I think it would be highly imprudent for me to project for 2015.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

When do you think you would have an estimate?

[Marc Mayrand]

Probably at the end of 2014 we will have a good sense of it. We'll know about the legislation. We'll know about the initiative that we have discussed to date in terms of Vision 15. We will have been able to cost them out, and we will, as we always do, establish a budget for the election.

I would point out to the committee that over the last four GEs, our costs have remained stable. The cost is between $11 and $12 per elector to conduct an election. That has remained at $11 to $12, despite inflation. Through various changes we've managed to find other efficiencies, and we will continue to do our best to contain costs.